1. Concepts 1.1 Primary vs. secondary intensions According to Chalmers’ two-dimensionalism (henceforth 2D), each concept has two components: a primary intension and a secondary intension. The primary intension of a concept is a function from scenarios to extensions. Very roughly, a scenario is a comprehensive, consistent hypothesis of a way the actual world could turn out to be that’s not ruled out by what you know a priori. Thus, consider the hypothesis H that the actual world is one in which everything is the way I believe it to be, except that the stuff that plays the watery role is not H20, but rather XYZ. I can’t rule it out from what I know a priori that H accurately describes the world I live in; H is therefore a scenario. Now with the notion of a scenario in mind, consider the concept, water. The primary intension of water is a function from scenarios to extensions, and thus picks out the class of things that, for all I know a priori, can pl...
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